Horton Hears a WTF

What could possibly be more comforting than a crew of recently discovered relatives taking you to the biodome named after your collective family to ply you with baked goods and regale you with stories of said family’s criminal endeavors and incestuous near-misses?

It looks like Eli’s going to fit in just fine with the Horton clan. Because any sane person would’ve been like, “Uh, what do you mean, Aunt Marie dated her own brother??” and bolted for the hills. But nah, he was just like, “LOL, gimme another donut.” And he made that observation about Julie being both Hope’s (step)mother and (half-)sister way too calmly.

Which isn’t to say that I didn’t enjoy these scenes. I could’ve done with actual flashbacks, but I loved getting all the Hortons in one place. The way the characters and actors clearly relished telling all those old stories was delightful. Having Lucas talk about his own experience coming into the family as an illegitimate relation was great. Jennifer’s strange attempt to match Julie and Doug’s color scheme while also evoking Valentine’s-themed menswear kept my mind racing the entire time. But it was all a little… easy, no? There’s obviously (deserved) tension from Eli and Julie toward Valerie for having kept this secret so long that Eli will never get to know David, but where’s the rest of the conflict? This is like Eli’s fourth episode, and the secret is already out and he’s assimilating into the family just fine. This isn’t a story so much as “clearly batshit young man finds kindred souls in family completely undisturbed by incredibly fucked-up situations.”

It’s insanity. Personally, I’m nosy and love drama, so I would’ve been like, “Tell me more!” But shouldn’t they have been worried that dumping all this on Eli out of the gate would’ve sent him screaming into the night?!

I too enjoyed seeing the Horton family get together—I even got emotional when they mentioned Tom and Alice! But as you said, the scene would have been more realistic to have Eli act more shocked/confused/incredulous. Still a nice episode.

On a different note, is the director trying to make Abigail look plain/modest/boring–esp in her scenes with Gaby? Gaby looks like she is sexing up her outfits while Abigail’s style grows more dowdy. ??

OMG, lol. And then she’d say it happened when she was helping Hope survive prison, and Eli would be like, “Wow, that must’ve happened recently!” and Jen could be all, “No, this was the LAST time Hope got herself thrown in prison.”

Although if they bring up that story… you know they’d have to mention that it was DANIEL who saved her!